Jose Ignacio Barraquer (1916-1998) was born in Barcelona, Spain, the eldest son of the renowned ophthalmologist Ignacio Barraquer. He established the Barraquer Institute of America in 1965 in Bogota, Colombia, but is best remembered as the inventor of refractive keratoplasty in 1949. Because he was the cofounder of the International Society of Refractive Keratoplasty (now the International Society of Refractive Surgery), the annual Barraquer Award Medal has been presented in his honor and now in his memory since 1987.